Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7780863@N06/ The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=foxing


"Pereira de Lisboa" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7780863@N06/ The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

On Apr 11, 10:01 am, "Pereira de Lisboa"
wrote:
Hi,
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: seehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/7780863@N06/The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?
Thanks
Pereira

Sounds like foxing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxing

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

OK, that's foxing.

Unfortunately, as you can read on Wikipedia, the causes of foxing are
not well understood (fungi, oxidation, umidity).

In fact I don't know where to place the books affected by foxing. Can
I safely place these books along with other books? Or must I isolate
them to avoid the issue spreading?

Thanks

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

Pereira de Lisboa wrote:

Can I safely place these books along with other books? Or must
I isolate them to avoid the issue spreading?

There are several processes that result in something that people
generally call foxing. Some of it is probably chemical (and will not
normally spread), but quite often it is fungal (and will spread given
the right conditions).

Fungal spores are notoriously difficult to kill. The smell of the spores
can be neutralised by kitty litter, and a spell in the freezer (well
wrapped in Ziploc bags) may help to render the spores inactive (as will
a spell in the sunlight), but actually killing them is very difficult.
They can remain dormant for years and years, just waiting for the right
conditions.

I have a large number of books from the 16th and 17th centuries. I avoid
anything that's really foxed to hell, but sometimes they are a bit gunky
when I first get them. Weather permitting, I put anything iffy in the
sunshine for a while (my balcony's a good place for letting the breeze
flip over the pages and give the whole book a good airing). If not, I'll
go for the freezer option. Then I'll put them in kitty litter for quite
a long time (weeks or months, though some people say that after a few
days it doesn't make any difference).

After all that I store them in humidity-controlled conditions, where the
spores will not be able to spread. I haven't had any problems with
fungus spreading once I've been through all that, but even then I'll try
to keep affected books away from unaffected ones.

If you have any leather bindings, check for something called red rot; it
spreads and can wreak havoc.

John

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

On Apr 12, 9:31 am, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"
wrote:
Pereira de Lisboa wrote:
Can I safely place these books along with other books? Or must
I isolate them to avoid the issue spreading?

There are several processes that result in something that people
generally call foxing. Some of it is probably chemical (and will not
normally spread), but quite often it is fungal (and will spread given
the right conditions).

Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the cause
is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

RF wrote:

Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the
cause is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

True 'nuff. These days paper is pretty much universally acid-free, and
the reactions between ink and paper that used to happen (particularly on
pages facing illustrations) don't generally occur.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7780863@N06/ The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?

I think you should lock all the doors of your castle, hang it with
red drapes and hold a masked ball.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

On Apr 12, 11:24 pm, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"
wrote:
RF wrote:
Since he said the books weren't that old, it would seem that the
cause is more likely fungal than chemical. Just my $.02

True 'nuff. These days paper is pretty much universally acid-free, and
the reactions between ink and paper that used to happen (particularly on
pages facing illustrations) don't generally occur.

If they were my books I separate them from my non-foxed books.

Reddish stains along the upper border of books
 

On Apr 13, 4:59 am, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:
a few books in my personal library have some strange reddish stains
along the upper border. I've just posted on Flickr some photos about
this issue: seehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/7780863@N06/The books
are 5-6 years old. What could be the cause? Mould, moisture, bad
quality paper? Must I isolate the stained books? Are they contagious
for other books?

I think you should lock all the doors of your castle, hang it with
red drapes and hold a masked ball.

Then get a hold of Roger Corman and Vincent Price!